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to his own qualities, tried according to any intelligible standard.

To the same level may be referred some of the latest tastes, which have appeared in modern times, as to what is the most desirable state and composition of society. These tastes have inclined a great proportion of mankind to wish to contemplate societies of such a composition, as the uniform grey or drab colours of the coats of Quakers, who, though they are good sort of people, I think, have more likeness to hired servants, than to prodigal sons. This is by way of conciliating a levelling taste with order. Externally this inclination assumes the hypocritical form of respect, for all that is most immediately useful in human nature. In reality, it is a wish to raise the price of the homely and vulgar stuff of human nature, and place it in a condition of undisturbed self-conceit, incapable of improvement in taste. But supposing that, in one generation, by the predominance of vulgar envy, the drab-colour were established in society, it would not be easy to persuade the next generation to remain contented with it, as the most beautiful of all things.

Such are the tastes and inclinations which belong to the lowest stage of feeling. But here it is proper to observe, that in all fictitious narrative, (to whatever stage of taste they may belong,) a sympathy with the personal feelings and fortunes of some particular character must be created, for the purpose of engaging the reader's attention, and carrying him on, and this must be the stock, whatever other things may be grafted upon it. Therefore, although a strong personal interest, awakened by a fictitious narrative, is not a feeling of any high grade, yet it does, on that account, make the work referable to this or that stage of

taste.

Having said thus much, Mr North, on the first stage of feeling, I shall now inquire what is the next. To the Second Stage, I think, may be referred all recognitions of a common humanity, extending through different individuals, and shewn in the natural affections of mankind. Although not lofty, this is at least deeply moving, and resolves the self-interested passions of individuals into something

universal and unlimited, in a sort of widely-diffused enthusiasm, or in the internal recognition of kindred being. This is what some of the German writers have called "holy nature;" and dramatists, among them, exploring the same vein, have shewn that they were capable of producing a great deal of sensation, in all the theatres of Europe. Kotzebue was one of the lowest. He makes his tenderness of as damp and watery a sort as possible, and confines himself to the most common and unmingled elements, which may be found in any mind whatever. In the dramas of the inferior German writers, there is often a transference of the scene into remote countries; and the persons on the stage, whether Asiatics, Europeans, or Hottentots, brought together, are made to join in sobbings of tenderness, undisturbed by any unseasonable discriminations of taste, that would lessen the breadth of the sensation. Schiller, in his Robbers, is not in a much higher vein, but deals in the passions of individuals, and seldomer resolves into the wet universal nature of German sentiment, which, I think, must be good, in so far as it conduces to the recognition of general humanity. But the fellow-feeling of a common nature, or of impulses widely shared, cannot justly be held up as the ultimate aim of poetical sentiment; since, if it were acknowledged as such, it would swallow up all distinctions of better or worse, or beauty and deformity. The aim of tragedy or novel-writing, is not like the figure of the kneeling African, on the medal struck in reference to the abolition of slavery, saying, “Am I not a man and a brother?". If one of the characters in Kotzebue's plays were making the same appeal, the reply might be, "You are a man and a brother by common origin, but you are not a person with whom we would think it any honour to sympathize from taste, however much we may desire your welfare." Among the English poets, Cowper, from humanity and humility, and from wishing to exercise the office of a Methodist preacher in verse, sought for this sense of universal kindred, and rejoiced in the participation of common affections. He has the following passage on the subject:

'Twere well, says one, sage, erudite, profound,
Terribly arched, and aquiline his nose,

And overbuilt with most impending brows,
'Twere well, could you permit the world to live
As the world pleases. What's the world to you?
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk
As sweet as charity from human breasts,
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a man.
How then should I and any man that lives
Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein,
Take of the crimson stream meandering there,
And catechise it well; apply thy glass,
Search it and prove now if it be not blood
Congenial with thine own; and, if it be,
What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose
Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art,
To cut the link of brotherhood, by which
One common maker bound me to the kind?

But it is here evident that Cowper considered common affection as a medium through which he might plead for a hearing of his Expostulations. It must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that the internal recognition of general nature is itself a feeling highly deserving of being called poetical. It is always found, and confessed to be such, in the enthusiasm of strong emotions widely shared. The German dramatists sought for nature in the situations of a few individuals brought up

on the stage. The later poets of Eng. land have sought for it more in general impulses diffused through a multitude. This cannot be more strikingly exemplified than by Lord Byron's verses on the English troops being called away from the ball at Brussels, previous to the battle of Waterloo. The verses are well known, but it is worth while to quote part of them here, to shew what I mean by strong natural emotions widely shared.

"And then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs,
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon nights so sweet such awful morns could rise!
"And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder, peal on peal afar,

And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng'd the citizens, with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips- The foe! they come! they come!' "And wild and high the "Cameron's Gathering" rose

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills

Have heard; and heard too have her Saxon foes.
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! but with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring, which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's cars!

"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave. Alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass,

While now beneath them; but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low."

These verses, so much admired and so popular, are a good example of emotions which are the means of recognizing that community of elementary nature, which exists in multitudes. Passing beyond the interests of individuals, these emotions extend into the knowledge of something absolute and unlimited, which is called "Nature," but which is not high or low in relation to sentiment, but only general. And literary works which make use of such means for affecting the mind, may be referred to the Second Stage of taste. The works of many of the German writers are referable to this class; and it is probable that in Europe they have been of much use, in preparing the way for other things, by accustoming literature more to the expression of feelings, which resolve themselves into the unlimited and unpersonal-although it were no more than common nature, melting into watery and tearful sentiment, or in those works which are meant to produce terror, the gorgons of vague and floating darkness, losing themselves in shadowy obscurity. The greatest depths of natural feeling are often accompanied with a sense of transitoriness and delusion, in which particular being appears lost and solved in an indefinite universality, like the Maya of the Indians. Sir William Jones gives a translation of one of their poems, in which the Gymnosophist expresses the desire to be weaned from the uncertainties of a transitory existence, and to fix his thoughts on the permanent and real. The poem is entitled the "Mallet of Delusion," and has among others the following stanzas:

"As a drop of water moves tremulous on the lotos-leaf, thus is human life inexpressibly slippery; the company of the virtuous is here but for a inoment; that is our ship in passing the ocean of the world.

"Day and night, evening and morning, winter and spring, depart and re

turn; time sports, life passes on, yet the wind of expectation continues unrestrained.

"To dwell under the mansion of the high Gods, at the foot of a tree; to have the ground for a couch, and hide for vesture; to renounce all extrinsic enjoyments-whom doth not such devotion fill with delight?

"Place not thy affections too strongly on foe or friend-on a son or a kinsman, in war or in peace. Be thou even-minded towards all, if thou desirest speedily to attain to the nature of Vishnu.

"Eight original mountains and seven seas, Brahme, Indra, the Sun, and Rudra,-not thou, not I, not this or that people; wherefore, then, should anxiety be raised in our minds?

"In thee, in me, in every other be ing, is Vishnu; foolishly art thou of fended with me, not bearing my approach; see every soul in thy own soul; in all places lay aside a notion of diversity."

Such is the pathetic address of the Gymnosophist, endeavouring to fix his attention on the eight original mountains and seven seas. This deep natural sense of transitoriness and uncertainty, is capable of being turned either to sadness or levity. "In modern times, it has sometimes taken the form of an inclination for scepticism in reasoning and matters of opinion; for when scepticism is perfect and absolute, it is like a resolution of all particular thoughts into the indefinite. But also, the same deep feeling of uncertainty has sometimes been shewn in the vague horrors of a German romance, where the principal events take place in a mysterious twilight, or while autumnal showers are driven by the wind through the recesses of some unexplored forest. In such productions, change, doubt, and indefinite sadness, are always the chief elements, and they belong to the second stage of feeling.

I shall now proceed to speak of the

Third Stage of feeling. To it may be referred the mixture of human passions and affections with the sentiment of the beautiful, and with the knowledge of the permanent and abstract idea. From this mixture arises internal taste, and discrimination as to the higher and lower grades of feeling. But still the mixture implies the presence of human affections, which are more or less changed, for example, in the sentiment, justice, or generosity, or repentance, or the love of the beautiful. To this intermediate region belong the finest struggles of sentiment tragedies or fictitious narrative; nice, from the mixture of the different elements, it is both interesting to the passions of the reader, and gratifying to his taste, or his internal discrimination as to the quality of feeling, which he must exercise in sympathizing with the transition of struggling affections from their natural anarchy, into abstract beauty. This, therefore, is the Third Stage, and retains somewhat of the elements of the two inferior. But it is unnecessary to say any thing farther, to render the difference between them perceptible.

I think the exercise of Imagination belongs most properly to the Third Stage of feeling. Imagination is not merely a power for conceiving new situations to interest the passions; for, in all the bolder and more sudden Hights of imagination, there is a temporary feeling of the reality of general ideas, as existing abstractedly from particular objects. These glimpses are only for a moment, but they are divine. It is this which connects imagination with elevation of sentiment. Relatively to this Voltaire was a remarkable instance. In him, imagination appeared as a power not always recognizing the beautiful, but exerting activity, to find astonishing contrasts 10 visible realities. He was like a strong and far-travelled bird appear ing on the earth, from some distant region; and the astonishment which he excited, was itself a satire on the narrow conceptions of mankind. His flights were rather those of strength and activity, than of rising qualities of taste. But almost any rapid exercise of imagination is connected with the feeling of the abstract. The rapid comparison of possible forms can seldom fail to produce some astonishment, and some risings of taste, beyond the narrow sphere of selfish pas

sion, and also beyond that of natural affections. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying, that imagination (which is a means of invention in all the stages of taste) belongs most properly, in point of feeling, to the Third Stage, which is the mixture of human affections with the sentiment of the beautiful. In all cases, imagination is an active recognition of the varieties of possible form. In its finest exercises, a profound sentiment of the beautiful makes these appear tinged with qualified hues, having almost the languor of passive affection. Activity, however, is most appropriate to imagination. These expressions may ap pear vague and mystical, but it can scarcely be otherwise in treating of such a subject.

That which characterizes the Third Stage of taste, therefore, is not the absence of human affections, but the internal discrimination of the qualities of feeling in relation to the abstract beautiful. Since satire discriminates as to quality, it must belong to this stage. It sometimes appears to make one half of human nature ironically sympathize with what is bad, while the other half is made to condemn, and to feel opposition of taste, and so to discriminate. But satire, without the exercise of taste, is mere buffoonery, or abuse.

The Fourth and last Stage of feeling is to be found in the fine arts, and in the contemplation of abstract relations, such as they are in themselves, without reference to human affections. This kind of feeling applies to form, style, possible order, relative colour, harmony, extension, and the like. These things cannot be so well expressed by literature, which gives only words to suggest conceptions to the reader, who may conceive imperfectly; but the fine arts exemplify abstract relations, and make them cognizable to the senses. The two first or inferior stages of taste have no relation to abstract form, but the third is not below the level of the fine arts, for it is the mixture of human affections with the sentiment of the beautiful. In music, it is well expressed by the inixture of the discords, and imperfect concords, of human affections, with harmony. In painting, it may be shewn in the expressions of the countenances, and in the various mixtures of light with darkness. The Third and Fourth Stages of Taste are closely al

that it may often require to consider lied; and the difference between them, is the absence of human passions and affections in the last.

Having thus gone through the different stages of taste, and established the grade of each, upon principles which must appear clear and undeniable to every person capable of reflecting upon the subject, I appeal to you, Mr North, whether I have not stated things well worthy of consideration, in an age when there are so many different excitements to bewilder the mind,

and ascertain their grade in relation to taste. I do not pretend to detract from the merits of any particular line or walk of literary composition, or unjustly to deprecate the mental gratifications which may be derived from it. I only seek to discriminate the kinds, and to make their respective qualities clearly perceptible. As a person, in learning to dance, goes through all the positions, so the mind goes (improving in agility and refinement) through all the regions of taste. I am, yours, &c.

H.

THE DEVIL AMONG THE ARTISTS; OR, DAVID DREADNOUGHT AGAINST ROUND-ROBIN.*

WHEN an earthquake occurs in Calabria, Sicily, Portugal, or any part of the habitable globe, excelling in convulsions and eruptions of nature, it leaves behind it such decided and unequivocal proofs of its reality, as to silence the cavils of the most sceptical. Towers, temples, palaces, and houses, streets, squares, and cities, go down like a child's card-play-thing, and perhaps some twenty or forty thousand human creatures are burned or buried. But when an earthquake occurs in Scotland, say at Inverness or Comrie, it is so faint and woe-begone, that its existence seems extremely problematical. Hence there arise two parties, the earth-quakers and the antiearth-quakers. The one pull a long face, speak in hollow murmurs, take you solemnly by the fourth button of your waistcoat, cast their eyes up to the ceiling, and stun your soul with the dreadful narrative. Shock after shock, they maintain, to the number mayhap of the devil's dozen, struck old mother earth till she trembled as with cholic; the heavens were as black, they asseverate, as the crown of their hat; the heat was like an oven, and the whole concern most frightful indeed, and dismal alike to men, women, children, and cattle.

In corroboration of such terrific doings of nature, and to shew that the solid earth must have quoke from its foundation, up comes the cook from the kitchen, solemnly swearing by her sole and flounder, that the very spit shook, and every pan clattered. The butler is ready to take his Bible-oath, that he heard bottles breaking in the binns;

and the pretty house-maid appears with a broken china-cup in her rosy paw, as demonstrative evidence of some mighty convulsion of nature. Dogs had been heard to bark, cattle to low, and children to squall. The very hens had tuck-tuck-tuck-a- tuck-tuckooed in the poultry-yard, in a manner which no hen would have adopted, except during an earthquake; and the dairy-maid having accidentally gone with Roger, the ploughman, into the barn during the darkness, had felt the very straw shaking, and observed that the eggs trundled away, most alarmingly indeed, out of their nests, bearing witness that the barley-mow was agitated to its foundation-sheaf. The anti-earthquakers, on the other hand, are willing to pledge faith, fortune, life itself, that there has been nothing whatever of the kind. If the bottles have shook upon the table, it was, according to them, after dinner; and the effect was produced by no earthquake, but by a rap of the knuckles, enforcing some jocular, political, or amatory effusion. If a gentleman fell off his chair, they blame no earthquake, but lay his fall to the charge of the jorum; and if the Turkey carpet heaved, sunk, and whirled, there seems no mystery whatever in such emotions, for they know, drunk as they are, that the earth is as fast as a nail, and that the table is standing a most steady octoped on a most trust-worthy floor. "Damn the earthquake did one or other of us either see, hear, or feel! However, we won't be positive; only we were too pleasantly occupied to attend to such trifles, and really we pity people who are so sensitive and

* Report of the Society of the Cognoscenti for the encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland. 8vo. 2s.

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